Raja Rao and his Novels Echo the Gandhian Freedom Movement

Basudeb critiques the novels of Raja Rao and analyses the impact of Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy in his works, in the weekly column, exclusively in Different Truths.

Raja Rao was roughly a contemporary of Mulk Raj Anand and R.K. Narayan. He was born on November 8, 1908, in the State of Mysore. His mother tongue was ‘Kannada’. English was his second language. He completed his post graduate study in France. He was adequately exposed to Europe and America because of his frequent visits to those two continents. But at the same time he was a child of Gandhian period. He breathed in an environment of Gandhian philosophy of life. His important works are Kanthapura (1938), Changing India (ed., with I.Singh,1947),The Cow of the Barricades, and other stories(1947),Whither India (with I.Singh,1948),The Serpent and the Rope (1960),The Cat and Shakespeare (1965),Comrade Kirilov (1976),The Policeman and the Rose(1978),The Chess master and His Moves (1978),On the Ganga Ghat (1993),The Meaning of India (1996),Great Indian Way: A Life of Mahatma Gandhi (1998),The Best of Raja Rao (1998).

In the foreword to his first novel Kanthapura, Raja Rao confessed that had much problems in writing his Indian experience of life in English. Every language is culture-specific. Naturally the novelist explored a particular variety of English language that matched his experience of Indian life he delineated in his novels. And that variety is Indian English which is distinctively different from the Standard British English. One of the important characteristic features of Raja Rao’s English is the ‘Mother-tongue interference’. He created many words which are technically known as ‘Classifiers’ (Compound words) to communicate his ideas or to describe certain features of his characters or events in his novels. Raja Rao’s enthusiastic contribution in the Indian Struggle for Independence under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi has been echoed particularly in his first two works, Kanthapura and The Cow of the Barricades.

Kanthapura shows how the protagonist in the novel is inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s principle of nonviolence. The novel is a record of Indian’s non-violent resistance against the colonial masters in India. Srinivasa Iyengar comments, “The theme of Kanthapura may be summed up as ‘Gandhi and our village’, but the style of narration makes the book more a Gandhi Purana than a piece of mere fiction. Gandhi is the invisible god, Moorthy is the visible avatar. The reign of the Red Men is the Asuric (demonic) rule, and it is resisted by the Devas, the Satyagrahis. The characters sharply divide into two camps: the Rulers (and their supporters), on the one hand, and the Satyagrahis (and their sympathisers), on the other.” (Iyengar, 391).

The locale of the story is a tiny village in South India. It is ‘Kanthapura’. This small village represents the whole of India. One can have the glimpses of the Indian struggle for Independence and the Indian philosophy of life through what happens at this tiny and obscure village. One old woman is the narrator of the story. Moorthy, the protagonist of the novel hails from the city to that village and he is very much inspired by the Gandhiji’s ahimsa and Satyagraha movement.

The novel is also a comment on the widespread caste system in Indian society. Gandhi believed that caste system in Indian society is inhuman and barbarous and he believed that this caste system is detrimental to the growth of the country. Moorthy is the ardent disciple of Mahatma Gandhi, who is the central character in the title story,TheCow of the Barricades, though Gandhi is in the background. Raja Rao wrote The Serpent and the Rope when he returned to India after a long stay abroad. During this phase of his life, Raja Rao tried to explore a “connection with his roots in the modern rendering of the Mahabharata legend of Satayavan and Savithri. The work also dramatised the relationships between Indian and Western culture”.

Raja Rao’s Kanthapura has the quality of an epic and The Serpent and the Rope has the quality of an encyclopedia. The novel, autobiographical in nature, shows novelist’s conscious shift of attention from the Gandhism to Vedantic Hindusim, from freedom narrative to metaphysical fiction. The Cat and Shakespeare is a comedy based on metaphysical narratives. It attempts to answer certain questions pertaining to philosophy, the questions the novelist made in his earlier works. The Chessmaster and his Moves show how people belonging to different cultures are in search of their identities.

Basudeb Chakraborti is a retired professor of English and Faculty Dean, University of Kalyani. He founded the Department of English in Sikkim Central University (2013). He taught in the USA and India. He wrote more than 100 articles in different literary journals in India and abroad. Among his books, Thomas Hardy's View of Happiness, Some Problems of Translation: A Study of Tagore's Red Oleanders, Indian Partition Fiction in English and in English Translation, etc.

Services

News-Feed

NEW DELHI/MUMBAI (Reuters) - The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed charges on Monday against a former chairman of state-run Canara Bank and others over allegations that the officials helped a company defraud the bank of about $10.5 million taken in loans over four years ago.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin struck a softer tone towards the West on Monday after winning his biggest ever election victory, saying he had no desire for an arms race and would do everything he could to resolve differences with other countries.

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Drivers for app-based cab aggregators Uber and Ola started an indefinite strike across India on Monday, demanding extra pay as a surge in the number of cabs on the two platforms, coupled with cutbacks in incentive payments, have stung drivers.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The United States has raised concerns about the functioning of the World Trade Organisation and asked for reforms, WTO Director General Roberto Azevedo said on Monday, as global trade tensions increased.

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - The world's financial leaders were seeking on Monday to clearly endorse free trade and renounce protectionism amid concern that U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminium and looming actions against China could trigger a trade war that would hurt global growth.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Britain and the European Union agreed on Monday to a transition period to avoid a "cliff edge" Brexit next year -- though only after London accepted a potential solution for Northern Ireland's land border that may face stiff opposition at home.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Britain's foreign minister won further support from the European Union and NATO on Monday over a nerve agent attack on a former Russian double agent as he denounced Moscow's denials of involvement as "increasingly absurd".

(Reuters) - Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg faced calls on Monday from U.S. and European lawmakers to explain how a consultancy that worked on President Donald Trump's election campaign gained access to data on 50 million Facebook users.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China elevated a key confidante of President Xi Jinping to one of the top positions in government on Monday as Beijing cracks down on riskier financing and a debt build-up that may pose systemic risks to the world's second-largest economy.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Actress and liberal activist Cynthia Nixon, one of the stars of the hit television series "Sex and the City," announced on Monday she would run for governor of New York, challenging incumbent Andrew Cuomo for the Democratic nomination.

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Film star Daryl Hannah returned to the red carpet with her debut as a feature film director and said the odds are stacked against women taking prominent roles in the film industry.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The president of the Academy of Motion Pictures, the body that hands out the Oscars, is being investigated for sexual misconduct, Hollywood trade publications reported on Friday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A law firm representing U.S. President Donald Trump and the corporation that paid porn actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 in what she called hush money over an alleged affair with Trump said in a court filing that it was seeking at least $20 million in damages for multiple violations of a nondisclosure agreement.

(Reuters) - Indian actor Irrfan Khan, whose roles in Hollywood films such as "Slumdog Millionaire", "The Amazing Spider-Man" and "Life of Pi" have brought him fame, has been diagnosed with a tumor and is traveling overseas for treatment, he said on Friday.

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - The stories told in a new documentary about Bill Murray are the stuff of an off-beat legend, taking the star to a Scottish house party where he washed the dishes, to singing with an accordion player in Slovenia and surprising a guy in a bar bathroom.

STROUDSBURG, Pa. (Reuters) - A Pennsylvania judge on Tuesday ruled that five other women who have accused comedian Bill Cosby of sexual assault over the years could testify at his retrial on charges of drugging and assaulting a former friend, giving prosecutors an early win.

NEW DELHI/MUMBAI (Reuters) - The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed charges on Monday against a former chairman of state-run Canara Bank and others over allegations that the officials helped a company defraud the bank of about $10.5 million taken in loans over four years ago.

MUMBAI (Reuters) - India's top cement maker UltraTech Cement Ltd on Monday offered $1.1 billion to buy Binani Cement Ltd days after a rival bid in what could be a test case for the country's fledgling bankruptcy process.

(Reuters) - McDonald's Corp said on Monday it had agreed to settle a U.S. labour board case on whether the company is accountable for its franchisees' alleged labour law violations, according to a source involved in the case.

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - The world's financial leaders sought on Monday to endorse free trade amid concerns over U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminium, while the United States said it could not sacrifice its national interests to make the system work.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The United States has raised concerns about the functioning of the World Trade Organisation and asked for reforms, WTO Director General Roberto Azevedo said on Monday, as global trade tensions increased.

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Drivers for app-based cab aggregators Uber and Ola started an indefinite strike across India on Monday, demanding extra pay as a surge in the number of cabs on the two platforms, coupled with cutbacks in incentive payments, have stung drivers.

NEW YORK, 2018 - U.S. stocks joined a broad decline in global equity markets on Monday as traders turned cautious ahead of the Federal Reserve's policy meeting this week and amid continuing concerns about the threat of a global trade war.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - AT&T Inc sought to persuade a judge on Monday to throw out evidence the government seeks to use in a trial that begins this week to show that the company's $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner Inc would harm consumers and competitors.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Retailers and shoemakers continued to sound alarms on Monday about their concerns that President Donald Trump's plan to impose sweeping tariffs on imported goods from China will result in higher consumer prices.

SRINAGAR/MUZZAFARABAD (Reuters) - Five members of an Indian family were killed and two injured by shelling from Pakistani troops on Sunday along the Line of Control, the de facto border between India and Pakistan, according to army and police officials.

JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A bomb planted on a motobike exploded in Afghanistan on Monday outside a political rally being held by a veteran insurgent commander who made peace with the government last year, killing three people and wounding eight, officials said.

MALE (Reuters) - Police in Maldives arrested at least 139 opposition protesters, its spokesman said on Saturday, as they attempted to defy orders under the state of emergency and march into the high security zone in capital Male.

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lankan officials said on Thursday they had lifted a ban on Facebook after discussions with the social network, a week after blocking access on the grounds it was being used to fuel communal violence.

KABUL (Reuters) - A Taliban car bomb killed at least three people and wounded two in the Afghan capital Kabul on Saturday in an apparent attack on a foreign contractor company that came despite a further tightening in security across the city, officials said.

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan and reserve player Nurul Hasan have been fined 25 percent of their match fees and handed one demerit point each for code of conduct breaches during Friday's ill-tempered Twenty20 international against Sri Lanka.

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Once seen as relatively secure, the sprawling Afghan capital of Kabul is becoming the main focus of an intensified U.S.-backed battle against the Taliban this year after a series of high-profile attacks exposed major gaps in security.

LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) - A suicide bomb blast claimed by the Taliban ripped through a police checkpoint on the outskirts of the Pakistani city of Lahore on Wednesday, killing seven people and wounding 18, officials said.

Donald Trump's weekend of assaults on Robert Mueller's investigation pushed Washington closer than ever to the major crisis of governance that could ensue if the President were to act on his fury and fire the special counsel.

Four bombings in 16 days have left the Texas capital on edge, as Austin police are warning the public not to take chances: If it looks suspicious -- whether it's a package, box or backpack -- do not approach it.

A worker at the French Consulate in Jerusalem has been arrested for smuggling weapons from Gaza into East Jerusalem and the West Bank using his diplomatic immunity, the Israel Security Agency (ISA) announced Monday after a joint investigation with Israeli police.